Amy Adams Knew About the American Hustle Pay Gap, Thank You Very Much

It was just one of many bombshells dropped during the Sony hack, but the issue of the pay gap between the stars of American Hustle set the Internet aflame. The leak revealed that national treasures Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence earned less for the splashy movie than costars Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale, and Jeremy Renner.

And FYI, Twitter critics, Amy Adams knew all about it. While Jennifer Lawrence revealed that she only found out about the inequity in the wake of the scandal and went on to write about it in an essay for the Lenny newsletter, Adams said in the new issue of British GQ that she was aware she was being paid less and signed on for the Oscar-nominated role, anyway.

"[T]he option comes down to do it or don't do it," she explained. "So you just have to decide if it's worth it for you. It doesn't mean I liked it."

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And Adams would prefer you keep your opinions of her personal choice to yourself. "I didn't speak about it before and I'm probably not going to speak about it forever, because I disagreed with...not Jennifer per se, but people had opinions on how women should go about negotiating," she said. "The truth is we hire people to negotiate on our behalf, men and women."

Based on her characterization of the environment on set, however, it sounds like her paycheck was the least of her problems.

"I was really just devastated on set," she said, opening up about how miserable American Hustle director David O. Russell made her during shooting. "I mean, [I didn't cry] every day, but most." While she admitted that the "Teflon" Lawrence didn't "take any of it on," Adams asserted that she's not so impervious. "I also don't like to see other people treated badly," she said. "It's not okay with me. Life to me is more important than movies. It really taught me how to separate work and home. Because I was like, I cannot bring this experience home with me to my daughter."

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